Almost by definition, "festivals" are extraordinary celebrations. As soon as you place "music" or "film" in front of the word you further extend the meaning. Every year for the past decade or so I have stuck my finger in the air to take the temperature of modern culture at a...

If you went to SXSW 20 years ago, you would have been there to see and discover new music. You worked at a label or publishing company, or perhaps you were a journalist or PR rep. Sure, there were locals and college kids swaying next to you at the shows,...

The wonderful thing about music is that there will always be another new band to love, and another song to rip you from reality and throw you into a more ethereal realm. With exponentially more music being made today than there was 30 years ago, music discovery has gotten considerably...

Another great year for films large and small, but in reality I think it was the bigger films that were better than the smaller ones. Perhaps it's that the indie film marketplace has never been more difficult than it is today. Art house screens are disappearing and the ones that...

This year, building a music discovery platform called TastemakerX, I was looking harder than usual at new music. I was doing this primarily to prove my thesis that music discovery is becoming increasingly more difficult. This is due in part to the enormous decrease in the costs of producing and...

I've been going to Coachella for many years now and I have also been to almost every other festival of its kind, but somehow Coachella is different. In many ways, depending how you play it and like all great festivals, Coachella can be a genuinely spiritual experience. It is not...

If I were to look back at my life and choose the one thing that has mattered the most and defined me as a person, without question it would be music. I'm not sure when it started but somehow, imagined or real, I have this vague but powerful image of...

For those unfamiliar with the nuances and evolution of the advertising business, educated primarily through the wonderful fiction of Mad Men, conventional wisdom would signal that much of the power in the ecosystem revolves around charming and dapper creative types. And for much of the history of modern advertising, that...

The resurgence of American music festivals over the past decade seems inversely correlated to the fate of the global music business. It is, however, the best possible microscope through which to observe the technologically enabled metamorphosis occurring in modern culture.

Coachella is perhaps the most important of these events,...

This year everything old seems particularly new again. Perhaps that is because I am now officially over forty, and I have been paying more attention to what is in the past than I ever did before. There was a time not so long ago when bands were empowered to communicate...

I write this while sitting on a plane back from Sundance, where I managed to see eight films in 48 hours. To be at Sundance and dedicate yourself to films intensely, even for a few days, is one of the most liberating experiences I can imagine for a few reasons....

The closing evening of the 30th annual Sundance Film Festival seemed like an opportune time to ponder the similarities between two sets of oddly kindred spirits.

"It took 10 years, innumerable false starts, five maxed out credit cards, and an unending sea of small bridge loans, and help from...

The Social Network is a work of inconsistently accurate but hugely compelling filmmaking. It is a rare highbrow popcorn flick, filled with obviously overly-literate college kids and the brooding air of espionage and urgency. It is best to assume that the storyline progresses somewhat linearly along a basic trail of...

In a cab heading south from Santa Monica to LAX a few weeks ago, I am immediately struck by a profound gap in the landscape. At once, I am reminded to take time to mourn for something very specific for a moment or two before it disappears completely. Among the...

In the weeks that have passed since the close of the 2010 Coachella Festival, I find myself compelled to write a few words on its unique importance. For those unfamiliar with the decade old music festival that rages for three days in the desert near Palm Springs, it has become...

The business of music seems to be forever spiraling towards something that seems like a bottom, despite the fact the black hole is still largely out of site. This doesn't keep artists and fans from uniting in that universal bliss flowing from the discovery of a wonderful song at the...

The Bestest 2009 - Filmmage
There seemed to be fewer films that will stand the test of time this year than in the past, but that is not to say there weren't a handful of gems. For me the most important filmic discovery was jaw dropping accessibility provided...

Long before a handful of companies that will no doubt become recognizable names in the very near future (GoGo and Row 44) were anything more than long term, expensive business plans, I began to dread their existence. For me airplane trips, long and short, have always been an oasis of...